CVE-2018-20681

Exp

mate-screensaver before 1.20.2 in MATE Desktop Environment allows physically proximate attackers to view screen content and possibly control applications. By unplugging and re-plugging or power-cycling external output devices (such as additionally attached graphical outputs via HDMI, VGA, DVI, etc.) the content of a screensaver-locked session can be revealed. In some scenarios, the attacker can execute applications, such as by clicking with a mouse.

Published: 2019-01-09 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-20681 is rated Exploit Available (52.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.17%). 2 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2018-20681

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-20681

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-11-21 0.10% 0.17% +0.07%
2 2025-11-18 0.17% 0.10% -0.07%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.17% —

Full EPSS history (7 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-20681

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.1 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:P)
Hands-on access—USB, keyboard, opening the case—not something you do purely over the wire.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 0.9 5.2 [email protected]
3.6 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-20681

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-20681

vendor priority summary link
debian low CVE-2018-20681 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (mate-screensaver), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-20681
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-20681 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (mate-screensaver), 19 status rows across 19 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 15, needs-triage 2, DNE 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-20681

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-20681

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mate-desktop mate-screensaver < 1.20.2 cpe:2.3:a:mate-desktop:mate-screensaver:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-20681

cvelogic Threat Intelligence